The war in the Middle East, started by and , is not something with effects limited to the region: it directly affects the pockets of all of us.
Through what is now blocked, a fifth of the world’s gas and a quarter of natural gas passes. The impact was, as we know, immediate, causing fuel prices to soar across the world. Filling a car’s tank costs a lot more today than it did at the end of February.
The International Energy Agency said this crisis is the most serious in the history of oil shocks. And the problem worsens with uncertainty. No one knows how long this conflict and blockade will last.
And this creates serious problems for economies, because it directly affects consumers’ purchasing power and generates concern among economic agents.
It’s just that prices rise, but revenues and salaries don’t increase at the same speed.
For those in power, it is synonymous with social tensions and falling popularity.
History shows – and Brazil knows this well! – how periods of high inflation have a direct impact on the image of governments. When the price of basic goods rises, discontent grows, and studies show that this has an impact on government approval ratings.
Trump is worried about this effect, and for politicians with elections coming up, such as da Siva, this is not good news.
Last year, Lula’s popularity plummeted in the polls due to food inflation, which became the government’s ‘Achilles heel’. Now, economists are already raising inflation forecasts.
With elections in October, if the situation worsens in the coming months, things will get more complicated – and Lula’s negative rating is already, according to , at 40%.
In Europe, inflation has already skyrocketed very alarmingly, jumping from 1.9% in February to 2.5% in March. And the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, even warned that the effects of the conflict are being underestimated.
The hope is that countries have learned something from the responses to the last inflationary crisis of 2021 and 2022. We will now see who passes and who does not pass this new political test.
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